pastry
Americannoun
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pastries
plural
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a sweet baked food made of dough, especially the shortened paste used for pie crust and the like.
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any item of food of which such dough forms an essential part, as a pie, tart, or napoleon.
noun
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a dough of flour, water, shortening, and sometimes other ingredients
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baked foods, such as tarts, made with this dough
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an individual cake or pastry pie
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pastry
Explanation
A pastry is a sweet baked good. If you are into fruit tarts or chocolate eclairs, then you've got a thing for pastries. Most pastries start out as a soft dough or batter made from flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and butter. A tray of pastry at breakfast could include Danishes and croissants, while dessert pastries might be baklava, cream puffs, and strudel. All of these are variously flavored baked sweets, some formed from thin layers of flaky dough and others filled with fruit, cream, or other fillings. Another type of pastry is pie crust, a buttery dough that forms the base (and sometimes topping) for pies. Pastry originally meant "food made from paste," and paste meant "dough."
Vocabulary lists containing pastry
Stairway To Leaven: Baking Vocabulary
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Voilà: Croissant Lingo
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Ten or 15 years ago, there were far fewer young people dreaming of becoming chefs," said Aabhas Jain, director of bakery and pastry training at Ecole Ducasse, a French culinary school also operating in India.
From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2026
It’s a film unlike any other period piece, as sumptuous as decadent as a French pastry.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
The town, founded in 1911 by Danish immigrants, is picturesque, with pastry shops and windmills.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
Pophams bakery, which has branches in east London, has had a peach and sweetcorn danish pastry on its menu.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
Forget about becoming a pastry chef when I grew up.
From "From the Desk of Zoe Washington" by Janae Marks
I love Moroccan pastries, especially cornes de gazelle, with coffee or fresh mint tea.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
Refined carbohydrates include foods made with heavily processed grains and sugars, such as white bread, pastries, and many sugary snacks.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2026
Porto’s also has found success outside its brick-and-mortar stores by shipping a selection of its unbaked pastries nationwide.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026
Historically, there has been no guidance on what they should provide, but from next September pastries and fried-eggs will be off the menu and there will be a sugar cap when it comes to cereals.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
Celia helps me pin my race bib on my shirt, and then they all venture out to see if there’s anywhere to buy coffee and pastries before the race starts.
From "Keeping Pace" by Laurie Morrison
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
